You may know that King Henry VIII married six wives, and he had two of them beheaded. Did you know that his divorce from his first wife paved the way for the Reformation in England?
Henry VIII wanted a son, but he and his wife, Catherine of Aragon, never had one. In 1526, he fell in love with another woman, Anne Boleyn. He wanted a divorce from Catherine, but to get one, he had to ask the pope. When Pope Clement VII refused, Henry decided he didn’t need the pope. He appointed himself ruler of all religious activity in England, then closed the Catholic monasteries and seized their wealth for himself. Henry broke off from Rome and the Catholic Church.
By the time Henry died, Bibles in England were written in English, not Latin. When Queen Elizabeth I, his daughter, took the throne, England officially became a Protestant nation in 1559.
